Episode Transcript
All right, you take your Bibles now and turn to Proverbs chapter 13.
Proverbs chapter 13 And God willing, we will be expounding verse 24, Proverbs chapter 13 and verse 24.
The title of the message tonight is, Can You Spare a Rod?
Can You Spare a Rod?
Used to Can You Spare a Dollar?
Can You Spare a Quarter?
And now, can you spare a rod?
Let me get my water.
I forgot it.
My voice is rather hoarse, but I'm looking forward to teaching God's Word tonight.
I enjoyed my study.
And this is a source for the old saying, Spare the rod and spoil the child.
Well, that's not how the scripture puts it, but that's kind of a short, sweet saying that people have gathered from that.
And the Bible has a better way of wording everything.
So, Proverbs 13:24 is our verse tonight, and it deals with the topic specifically of corporal punishment.
And there have been many so-called experts over the years who've tried to find better ways to discipline children.
In the ways that God has outlined for us in His Word.
And the Bible gives us many examples of how to discipline children.
A lot of them come from just the wording that we have tonight.
Some of them come from how God disciplines us.
In the Scripture.
But the one that's come under attack by the world the most is no doubt corporal punishment.
It's the most controversy. a controversial form of punishment, and it's been attacked by the world.
It's never really been attacked by the church.
This has been attacked a lot by the world, and there's a good reason for that, and one of the reasons is if it's applied properly, it works.
The devil would rather have rebellious children.
He'd rather have chaotic, uncontrollable families.
He'd rather destroy.
The authority of parents in the home.
When he destroys, he hates authority.
Satan hates authority.
He hated the authority of God.
He hates any kind of God-given authority.
And the parents are the microcosm.
They're that building block.
Authority in society, and that authority is given to them by God, which is why God said to obey children, obey your parents, right?
Honor thy father and thy mother.
And that's because God has given them that authority.
And so, corporal punishment means the physical or the bodily punishment, to punish a child physically.
To punish them by inflicting punishment on their body.
And people have been raising their children according to God's word for thousands of years.
And as long as you follow God's word correctly, then it will work correctly.
And tonight Solomon speaks about, if you look in your text, he that spareth his rod.
He that spareth his rod.
Does it say his rod or the rod?
His rod.
God's given you a rod.
If you're a man and you're in the house, God's given you a rod.
When you grow up to be a young man, you have your own children.
God's given you a rod.
And that is, He has given you that position and that power of authority.
To exercise corporal punishment upon your children.
And so that belongs to you.
God has given you that right.
God has given you that Responsibility, and it's up to you to use it.
Now, the Hebrew word translated rod here literally means a stick, a stick.
It's most often translated in the Bible as the word tribe.
Isn't that interesting?
He that spareth his tribe.
Well, that's not what it's saying, but it's saying he that spares his stick.
And you think about the tribe of Judah.
It's really the stick of Judah.
And the reason is, is because you have Israel.
And Israel's like the trunk, and then Judah or any of the other tribes, they just branch off They branch off.
So a rod is a branch or a stick.
Just branch right off of Israel, and you've got those 12 branches that come off that family tree.
And so it's most often translated tribe, but this word means a stick or a branch, and its meaning is determined by how it is used in a sentence.
That's why we don't say the well, sometimes we use the word branch.
Jesus is referred to as a branch.
But again, it's understood by its use in a sentence.
And I'll give you a good example of that at my father-in-law's funeral a couple of weeks ago.
He had a custom-made walking stick That was on display by his casket.
It was a very handsome.
Have y'all ever seen those custom-made walking sticks?
They'll have little things about their life or whatever on there.
And so he had that stick.
And when I was on patrol, I carried a night stick.
They were both sticks, maybe made from the same kind of wood, the same kind of tree.
One stick was made for walking, the other stick was made for whooping.
And the stick in our verse tonight is made for whooping.
And that stick was made for my father-in-law because he before he was confined to a wheelchair, he once had trouble walking, and he would use that stick to help balance himself.
And had he spared his stick, had he spared his rod, then he could have fallen and hurt himself.
So, to spare the walking rod, then that would have been a foolish thing for him to do.
In the same way, to spare the whooping rod is a foolish thing for a parent to do.
Someone gave him the stick, and God has given you the stick as a parent.
And you see, here's how it works, old people sometimes.
And I guarantee anyone here that's old, they'll amen it, at least in their heart.
But old people sometimes have trouble walking, so they need a stick.
And likewise, young people sometimes have trouble obeying, and they need a stick.
A good old fashioned stick can help both of them out, the old and the young.
And for that reason the Bible says, He that spares his rod.
In other words, the dad that doesn't use the rod that God has given him for correcting his son's disobedience, look back at your text now, hateth his son.
He hates his son.
You say, oh, I don't hate my son.
I love my son.
I don't use a rod.
I wouldn't ever spank my child.
I'll put them in timeout.
And there's nothing wrong with timeout, but if you spare your rod Then you hate your child.
And the man said, Well, I've never disciplined my son with a rod.
And a rod is what my grandparents, by the way, they would call a switch.
So have you all been whipped by a Switch before?
I'm just curious.
Have you been whipped by a good old-fashioned Switch?
Man, those bring back good memories, doesn't it?
But, you know, I would imagine someone said, well, I'd never use a switch or a paddle or my hand. or anything like that to spank my child, or and uh spanking uh may be on the rear end or it could be on the leg, or it might just be reaching over going like that on a child's hand.
It's all the rod.
And so I love my son.
But the Bible here says if you spare the Rob, then you hate your son.
It doesn't mean that A person deliberately hates his son.
I don't believe that's the case for the vast majority of people.
It's natural to love your children and to be willing to die for your children.
To spare the rod is to effectively hate your son.
You see, by sparing his son the rod, Or by sparing our children the rod, then we're harming our children as all as if we hated our children.
When you hate someone, you harm them.
And here, if you spare the rod, you're doing your child harm.
The Hebrew word that's translated hate here also is translated as enemy in the Bible.
Enemy.
And there was a young mother that was a church member in a different church I pastored once.
And she had a very disobedient daughter.
You know the kind of children when you're in the store and you see one being a brat and you just want to go over there and just take care of business yourself.
Well, she had that kind of child.
And I was watching that child just rebel and be obstinate. obstinate little brat one night, and she needed a a a really good smacking to put her in her place.
She needed to be humbled.
And after I saw how that little girl ran over her mother, I told her mother, I said, You need to spank her.
And her mother said, oh, I don't want to spank her.
I have trouble doing that.
She said, because I want us to be friends.
And, you know, by not spanking her child, she wasn't being her child's friend.
According to the Bible here, she was being her enemy.
She hated her child.
In other words, she was putting herself at being an enemy.
Of her child because she was not doing her child any good.
She's not being her friend.
She was her friend.
She would have.
Use the rod.
And why does God tell parents to use corporal punishment?
It's because corporal punishment is God's natural way of protecting children from harm.
I'm going to repeat that again.
Corporal punishment is God's natural way of protecting children from harm.
When I was growing up, I was talking to someone this morning, in fact, about this when I was talking to a lady today at work and and she was talking about how Someone we know, they needed help at their business.
The man owns a tree farm.
And they said they just can't get anyone to come work.
And I said, you know, when I grew up, And I was young when boys were 13, 12, 14, 15 for sure.
Those boys, they were looking for work in the summer.
All right, Brother William.
If you could pitch watermelons or bale hay. or work at the feed store or move furniture.
Boys was looking for work and it was just a sign of young manhood.
It felt good to work.
And well, when I was growing up, my dad had me working.
Some of my earliest memories are working.
Memories are drinking out of the bottle, milk out of the bottle, and working at my dad's shop.
My earliest memories may not be quite that early, but it's pretty early he had me up there.
And when I was growing up, I was working at my dad's shop and I was a young fella and when winter came my dad had this gas heater.
That stood about this tall and had a round top on it, and boy, that heat would come up.
Remember that heater, Daddy?
Remember that heater?
You had a bunch of them, I know, but I remember it.
And it stood about this tall.
All the men would gather around that heater and do this, you know, and they'd get warm. while I was over here working in the cold.
So uh but uh I gathered around that heater one day when it was safe to do so and uh and I was going to get warm and and I accidentally touched The top, there wasn't any protection around there.
This was in a grown man's area.
It wasn't meant for kids.
But, you know, I accidentally touched the top of that stove.
With one of my fingers.
And when I did, I heard my skin sizzle.
And it burnt so hard, so fast. that it permanently changed my fingerprint from that time forward.
I can still look at it, get some light, and I can still see where the fingerprints changed a little bit.
And I tell you what, when that happened, I knew because when that finger sensed that heat.
It sent a wonderful message.
I mean, it was beautiful.
It just went from there up to here.
And there was forever stored in my brain, don't get close to that heater.
And you know what?
I never had any trouble with that heater again.
Never had any trouble at all.
From that time forward, I was very aware of my distance.
From that heater.
And do you know what that heater burn was to me?
It was corporal punishment.
It's God's natural way.
Of training a child.
It's a natural way of training people.
Now, that heater didn't know it was teaching me that lesson, but God had put that into my brain.
That when they feel the heat, boom.
No, disassociate from that.
And that's what I did.
Corporal punishment.
It works on the youngest children, it works on the dumbest people.
It works.
Jimmy Dunklin and I, he was my highway patrol partner when I was in my twenties.
And we came to the conclusion.
We watched a lot of people.
We watched human nature We watched people that we arrested go through the criminal justice system, come out, and just do the same stuff over again.
And we came to one conclusion.
Brother Shepherd, you tell me if I'm wrong.
And if you hadn't come to that conclusion, I'm curious.
We come to the conclusion that for some people, the only lesson they know is this: if it hurts, I won't do it anymore.
That's the only, if it hurts, I won't do it anymore.
But if it doesn't h Why they'll just do it right again.
And they've got to get hurt.
And but the youngest Children and the dumbest children, and the dumbest adults can be taught by using the simple time-tested method of corporal punishment.
In other words, ouch, I won't do that again.
It works.
If a heater can teach a child a lifelong lesson, then a parent can do the same.
Doesn't that just make sense?
The reason I never touched that heater again is because I knew that it would burn me again if I did.
And this is why corporal punishment for disobedience needs to be consistently applied.
So that the parents' word will be consistently obeyed.
Now, if I thought that that burn on that heater was a one-time thing and it never happened again, I think, well, Glad I got that over with.
Now, you know, you'll lay your hand on there.
You don't have to worry about it.
But because I knew that this would be a consistent Result, if I put my thumb on there again, then I consistently respected that heater and stayed away from it.
And so if you're going to use or when you use corporal punishment, make sure that your child knows it will be consistently applied.
So that your word will be consistently obeyed.
He who hates his son will spare the whooping stick.
Look back in your text.
But he that loveth him, that is the one who truly loves that child.
The parent who is true to that child's friend and is a loving father should do what?
Chasten him, see that in your text, chasten him betimes.
Chasten him betimes, or betimes, however you want to pronounce it.
The word chasten means to teach someone by striking them.
To teach someone by striking them.
And people may think, oh, I just can't think of striking my child.
But in this case, it's striking him with a rod.
And this is an important point to make, namely, that the purpose of the rod, because it says here.
Chasten in him betimes, and again, the word chasten means to teach someone by striking them.
Why is that so important?
Because the purpose of the rod is to teach the child, not to harm the child.
Some parents just don't get that.
But you want the rod to teach the child not to harm the child.
Had I gone over there And perhaps if my dad, and I don't think my dad ever knew I burned my thumb or my finger, I'd have to look back where the sizzle's at.
But he probably didn't even know.
I probably didn't tell him.
You know what he would have said if I'd have told him.
I've had workplace on my eyeballs, so there's no use to even telling parents back then.
But had he known And he knew I was okay, he probably would have said, Well, I don't teach him a lesson he wants to worry about anymore.
But now, had I gone over there and my whole clothes caught on fire.
And I heard third-degree burns on my body, would he be right to say, well, that'll teach him a lesson?
No.
Because then, what are you doing?
You're harming the child, not teaching the child.
I once had a dog who kept getting out of my fenced yard.
You know, a dog can get ran over if they get out of your yard.
They can get in trouble.
They can get shot.
Do someone get tired of them getting in their yard?
They'll put out some antifreeze for that dog to drink, and you won't have a dog anymore.
And so it's best to keep your dog in your yard.
It's right to keep your dog in your yard.
But I had a dog who kept getting out of my fence yard.
So I bought me one of those electrifying kits.
I plugged it in and I strung me some wire about six to ten inches inside my fence line and I put it all around my yard and I turned that thing on.
And the instruction said that all they have to do is hit that with their nose one or two times, and you can turn electricity off after that.
I thought, I'm going to watch.
I watched my dog.
That dog saw that wire, and she was real curious, and she went over there, and she started to smell of it.
When her nose hit that wire, it was great, man.
That dog yelped and jumped and backed up, and it was great.
And a day or so later, you know what I did?
I shut that electricity off.
You know what she'd do?
She'd run over that fence and she'd stop when she saw that wire.
There wouldn't need electricity on.
But it was corporal punishment.
It didn't hurt the dog.
But the pain taught the dog a lesson that that dog would not forget.
But now I kept the wire up.
I couldn't take the wire down after that because the dog had to believe that there would be a consistent punishment if she continued to try to cross that fence.
So I kept the wire up because the fear of crossing the line needed to remain.
I remember in elementary school there was a principal named Mr.
Hsu.
You remember Mr.
Hsu, Mama?
He had so many children he didn't know what to do.
No, I'm kidding with you.
But, Mr.
I'm sorry, my sense of humor.
Mr.
Shu, there was this rumor going around about Mr.
Shu.
Mr.
Shu had a paddle.
And it was wrapped in electrical tape.
And all the rumor around all of elementary school was that he had a nine-volt battery.
Attached to the backside of that paddle, and that when he swatted you, not only would you get the swat, but it would also shock you.
And we were scared to death of ever getting sent to the principal's office.
And Mr.
Hsu left that paddle hanging up. in his office on display and his door open.
And every time we passed by, all the kids would look through that glass administration office and we'd see that electric paddle hanging up there.
Another teacher, Miss Sebrin, she had one.
She called it the green banana.
And it was a big green paddle.
She said, you didn't want to get hit by that green banana.
But they kept those paddles hanging up on the wall.
And you know what?
It worked.
It was just like us seeing that I had my rod and I stuck it on the wall too.
I called it the no-no stick.
And the kids did not want to get anything to do with that no-no stick.
And I kept it up on the wall, so it's that no-no stick.
But the corporal punishment had done its job with that dog.
All I had to do was keep the wire there.
And if needed, I could turn the electricity back on.
But because the corporal punishment had done such a good job the first time and did it right, didn't harm the dog, it taught the dog. then there was no need for that corporal punishment anymore.
And that's why if you do it right early, which we'll get to next, B times Then the corporal punishment can stop.
You deal with them as a child.
But it did its job.
It taught my dog an important lesson of staying out of the yard.
Now, I could have ran some thicker wire.
I could have added some voltage around my fence so that when my dog touched the wire, it would have burned his nose or even killed her.
But that would again have missed the point of shocking my dog.
What could I have accomplished if I electrocuted my dog trying to keep her from getting around over?
See, we don't want to harm the child.
We don't want to make the child bleed.
We don't want to make the child bruise if possible.
And sometimes on older children, it's hard to do, but if you use a belt, but we don't want to harm the child.
And the purpose of using a rod is to help your child, not hurt them.
And we should spank our children with a rod, like the electricity in the fence.
Not the electricity and the power line, if you think of it like that.
The former teaches the child, the latter harms the child.
To chasten a child B times means to chasten him early.
Early, early in age, early when you see them deviating from the path that God would have them to go.
In other words, you don't Want to wait until your dog gets ran over before you install the electric fence.
Catch them early.
Teach your children when they are young.
And don't be afraid to spank them early.
Don't think, well, I want to be able my child to understand why they're getting a spanking.
That way I can communicate.
I'm going to wait till they're old enough I can communicate with them.
That's too late.
You start with that child when they're young.
Communication, what do you think that heater said to me when that heater burned my finger?
What do you think that heater said?
Now, Richard, let me explain why I just burned you.
That hurt me worse than it hurt you, Richard.
It didn't do that.
That heater didn't have to say a word.
I didn't have to be taught anything or told anything about the heater.
I just had to have the simple affirmation of this hurts when I do this, therefore I will not do that anymore.
And if you will catch your child early.
You can take a simple little switch, a simple little paddle, a simple little spat on the hand, whatever, and you can catch them early.
And all you'll have to do Is say the word no.
Say the word no, inflict the sting.
Suddenly they realize that hurts when I do that.
And every time I hear that word no, something bad happens.
So if I'm told no, you want them to learn that word no and stop.
Immediately stop.
All they need to know is the word no and a sting on the hand or on their bottom.
And once they learn the importance of heeding the word no, you have half your battle won.
Just make sure you also teach them the word yes and not just the word no.
Teach them the words good job, and I'm proud of you.
Not just calling them names and can't you do anything right.
Correcting a child and rewarding a child go hand in hand.
You have to have both.
Brother Shepherd and I are both supervisors at work.
What would it be if all we did was get on to the people that work under us and we never told them, good job?
You all have probably been at places like that.
Maybe you've worked at places like that before.
You always got nasty grams or someone got chewed out or someone's always in trouble or something, but they never build you up.
Correcting and rewarding go hand in hand.
And if you reward without correcting, you'll get a spoiled brat.
But if you correct without rewarding, you're going to end up with an insecure child, confused, discouraged, and maybe just flat out angry and rebellious.
The word no won't mean anything anymore because they never learned the word yes.
If you tell them they're going the wrong way, you've got to encourage them and point them on the right way.
And then when they get on the right way, you applaud them all the way they go.
And with that, we'll go ahead and stop.
That is the proper way.
To use the rod.
You don't harm, you teach.
You teach early, and along with the word no.
You always teach them the word yes, and I'm proud of you.
Father, thank you so much for your precious word.
We love you.
We thank you for the wisdom that you give us in the Proverbs.
Thank you so much.
God be with these people tonight.
Bless them as they go home.
Bless them throughout their week.
We know the devil competes for the attention of our minds.
He wants our hearts to be on the things of this world.
He wants our minds to drift away from your word throughout the week onto the profane things of this world, dear God.
And, Father, I just pray you'll watch over our minds and our hearts this week, bring us back safely this Sunday, and guard us, Lord God, and keep us in the way.
You said, Lord.
That, as our Father, that you correct us and you chasten us because you love us.
And Lord, we pray that we'll learn the value of your word now, of your prohibitions in your word.
And we thank you so much. for the word Yes you've given us and the great encouragement of the rewards you have promised all of those, Father, who obey you.
In Jesus' precious name, let us be the children that we should be.
And thank you for your rod.
Amen.
